“The boy had no sooner arrived, people said afterwards, than Balaram had run into the house to look for the Claws. There were plenty of people gathered outside the big house to vouch for it — boys in buttonless shorts, toothless, shrouded widows, a few men who had not found work for the day, squatting … More ALU-ring while striking sharp
The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz ZafónMy Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Somewhere on the path of life, when adulthood looms large and we end up seeing the horizons of the impending twilight more frequently than we would wish to, there are stops of childhood sped past that we reminisce the most – … More Doppelgänger, nee, Shadows?
Watchmen by Alan Moore (Illustrated by Dave Gibbons and John Higgins)My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’. In other words, ‘Who will guard the guards themselves?’ .The undercurrent of this question is all over the novel and pretty much rocks the boat, both literally and figuratively. In 1970s of America, a bunch of costumed … More Book Review: Watchmen by Alan Moore (1986)
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima My Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Confession , as a word, has a strong connotation – prelude to its utterance is a hesitation, and that hesitation alone, is sufficient to engulf the confession-maker with an odour that reeks of both delay and guilt. But Mishima’s protagonist can take … More Book Review: Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima (1958)
The Fox Was Ever The Hunter by Herta Müller My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Imagine your heart is a sheet of paper and Müller’s words, the needle – and then, let the typewriter go berserk. Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang. The words hit you, one after another, and her ink doesn’t run dry. … More Book Review: The Fox Was Ever The Hunter by Herta Müller (1992)
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars You landed in my world on a calm, dewy evening And struck was I with a song I was about to sing; A song that lay hidden in the silhouettes of each letter That protruded from the cover, all poised to embitter. But waited … More Book Review: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (1972)
A Heart So White by Javier Marías My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars What do I wish to hear? About the present? The past, may be? Or a little tune on the waiting future? Do I wish to eavesdrop on my best friend to find out what she thinks of me when I am not … More Book Review: A Heart So White by Javier Marías (1992)
A Personal Anthology by Jorge Luis Borges My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Borges and I I: Borges: I: Borges: I: Do you like silence? Borges: What silence? I: The one you are filling up this space with right now? Borges: This, is my ground. Contemplation, not Silence, my weapon. Thought, my battle. I: A … More Book Review: A Personal Anthology by Jorge Luis Borges (1961)
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars ‘Those who love from a distance are not seduced by lust.’ Thus crooned a honeyed, longing voice I happened to hear two days back. Perhaps the essence was expressed before; in manifold arrangement of words, in wavy placement of multiple strings. But sometimes, something … More Book Review: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (1956)
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño My Rating: 4 of 5 stars Somewhere in the midst of this book, Bolaño spells out in explicit words what I suspected to be the undercurrents from the word go: ….a novel about order and disorder, justice and injustice, God and the Void. So there I was … More Book Review: Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño (1996)
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